Fine Win for Alejandro!

OMG! Second year in a row that a Mexican wins the Best Director award, and the films they've made do not even have anything to do with Mexico!  Just shows to you how globalized the film industry has become!  

Last year, Alfonso Cuaron won for Gravity, which was a breathtaking film in space, while this year, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won for Birdman, which is about a has-been box-office actor trying to prove he's really an actor, by doing a difficult play in Broadway!

Inarritu's film canon is also one of my favorites, from Babel to 21 Grams to Amores Perros - this guy has done an amazing range of films that to win an Oscar for a dark comedy, does not even paint a picture of how good he can be at any genre.  

Loved his acceptance speech as well, for Best Picture.  I really hope in the future, Filipino-Americans can take the cue and excel as well on film!

My Two Favorite Scripts of the Year Wins!

Ever since I covered the Oscars in 1983, the two screenplay categories are usually the ones I closely watch simply because it's the one closest to my heart. Writing for the screen takes a different skill since it involves a great ear for dialogue and a lot of great punchlines. So I've decided to place below the best lines from the two movies that won today, first for Birdman, then the other one for The Imitation Game -

Actually, andaming magaling na one liners from Birdman because it's written like a play, and its future Broadway adaptation (I'm sure it will have) should benefit from it -

"Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige."

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Jake: Oh my gosh! How do you know Mike Shiner?
Lesley: We share a vagina.

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Lesley: I wish I had more self-respect.
Laura: You're an actress.

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Mike Shiner: Does she speak?
Sam: She does. Yeah, she can sit, stay, and roll over if you have any treats.

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Riggan: Why did we break up?
Sylvia: Because you threw a kitchen knife at me. And an hour later you were telling me how much you loved me.

And these are the ones from The Imitation Game, very poignant, very elegant writing.

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Joan Clarke: Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

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Alan Turing: Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes... hollow.

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Alan Turing: When people talk to each other, they never say what they mean.
[pause]
Alan Turing: They say something else and you're expected to just know what they mean.

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Final quotes: His machine was never perfected, though it generated a whole field of research into what became known as "Turing Machines". Today we call them "computers".

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Joan Clarke: I know it's not ordinary. But who ever loved ordinary?

So This is the Guy who Made Edward Norton's Bum Look Good in Birdman

So this is the guy responsible for the in-your-face camera shots of Birdman! I was in seat Letter D in Trinoma and his shots were so tight that when Edward Norton stripped to his skivvies, I swear I could reach out my hand and touch his naked bum!! When Emma Stone ranted in that famous scene, you can actually feel she was talking to you (and not to Michael Keaton!).

That he also got an Oscar for the breathtaking Gravity, wow, such groundbreaking work for both films! Unfortunately, if you watch Gravity and Birdman in your phones or laptops, you won't get the same experience as I had when I watched it in a large theater.